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This Father’s Day

Jun 17, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Mothers and Daughters, Spirituality

I find myself in a sort of a gray place today. Granted, it’s the Seattle area and the skies are often as they look today: filled with clouds, overcast, chilly. But it feels like more than that.

It’s Father’s Day. My daughters are with their dad – and, therefore, not with me. A new experience this year. Maybe that’s part of it.

In an effort to shift to a brighter or at least clearer space I spent some time reading the liturgy of the week. I came across this excerpt from The Orthodox Way by Kallistos Ware. It touched the gray and invited some grace-filled shafts of warmth and sun…

The actress Lillah McCarthy describes how she went in great misery to see George Bernard Shaw, just after she had been deserted by her husband.

 

I was shivering. Shaw sat very still. The fire brought me warmth…How long we st there I do not know, but presently I found myself walking with dragging steps with Shaw beside me…up and down Adelphi Terrace.

 

The weight upon me grew a little lighter and released the tears which would never come before…He let me cry. Presently I heard a voice in which all the gentleness and tenderness of the world was speaking. It said: “Look up, dear, look up to the heavens. There is more in life than this. There is much more.”

Whatever his faith in God or lack of it, Shaw points here to something that is fundamental to the spiritual way. He did not offer smooth words of consolation to Lillah McCarthy, or pretend that her pain would be easy to bear. What he did was far more perceptive. He told her to look out for a moment from herself, from her personal tragedy, and to see the world in its objectivity, to sense its wonder and variety, its “thusness.” And his advice applies to all of us.

However, oppressed by my own or others’ anguish, I am not to forget that there is more in the world than this, there is much more.

I bought more flowers for the front porch yesterday. When I got up today I spotted them as I picked up the Sunday paper. They made me smile. I bought a few more when I went to the grocery store this morning – wanting even more of their color, their warmth, their reminiscent glimpsing of Eden. They permeate the gray and offer me heaven in the hear and now. As will my daughters when they return from their time with their dad. As will my parents and my brother as they visit here this afternoon. As will even gray skies as I recognize their Creator.

How like God to speak through George Bernard Shaw to Lillah McCarthy. And to me – on Father’s Day. “Look up, dear, lookup to the heavens. There is more in life than this. There is much more.”

Indeed, and not just in the heavens, but all around.

Asking “what-if” questions

Jun 12, 2007 | Spirituality

These days, at Mars Hill Graduate School, we are considering a lot of “What if” questions:

  • What if you truly loved your neighbor as yourself?
  • What if you were truly willing to enter the heartache of a fallen world?
  • What if you truly believed the gospel could change the world?

They are almost trick questions because, of course, as a Christian, one is almost mandated to answer them in a positive,
definitive, and no-questions-asked sort-of way:

  • Of course I love my neighbor as myself!
  • Of course I’m willing to enter the heartache of a fallen world!
  • Of course I truly believe the gospel can change the world!

The problem is that our lives don’t reflect our oh-so-confident response. At least mine doesn’t.

And that’s why I like these questions.

They provoke me. They prod me. They haunt me. Theyprompt even more questions. And all of this is good.

I wonder if Jesus’ parables didn’t strike a similar chord. He consistently provoked and prodded and haunted – especially those who thought they had all the right answers. They prompted even more questions – still. And all of this is good.

Here are some more “what if” questions:

    • What if I wasn’t afraid to ask questions?
    • What if wasn’t afraid of not getting the answers right? What if I asked more questions of myself,
      others, and even God?
    • What if, indeed?

    All of this is definitely good. 

    On Womens’ Suffering

    May 3, 2007 | Spirituality

    I was at a conference last weekend in Syracuse, NY, at which a number of theologians, philosophers, and educators spoke and thought together. The theme was Feminism, Sexuality, and the Return of Religion. Regardless of what the event might have hoped to invite or engage, there was one significant theme I took away: women have, do, and will suffer.

    Let me quickly say, on the heels of such a depressing statement, that I am not depressed by this. Rather, I was able to think about the reality of suffering as certainly inevitable but also as the context through which we know and offer much hope – and ultimately life.

    Sarah Coakley was the speaker on Friday morning; she is the one to whom I must give credit for these categories in which I’m been ruminating this past week. She said that there are really three categories of suffering:

    1) Suffering with no way out. No amount of will or agency or courage can change the situation. It is completely, 100 percent, out of our control. Examples might include the Holocaust, genocide, fatal disease and even some natural disasters.

    2) Suffering but with the inclusion of agency. The circumstances are truly painful but there is the possibility that a woman could exert her will and begin to experience change. In so doing, we must quickly recognize that such change may, in fact, be a step out of one form of suffering and movement into another. The key, however, is that agency actually can be exerted. This kind of suffering is not completely out of her control. An good example would be domestic violence: horribly tragic and not at all occurring because the woman isn’t exerting agency. Rather, it’s a context in which the circumstances, though horrific, do still have room for movement and change (perhaps, at times, not by the woman herself but by the community around her).

    3) Suffering that is chosen – freely, willingly, and on behalf of something or someone else. The quickest image that comes to my mind is that of a mother protecting her children. Mother’s throughout time have willingly sacrificed themselves – even their very lives – on behalf of their child’s protection, health, or very life. 

    How might women begin to understand more clearly the dramatic difference between these three categories and then willingly, freely, even with exuberant hope step consistently, bravely, and willingly into number three? Discernment.

    I met with my Spiritual Director this morning. As we talked about these categories – and discernment – she said that we make a mistake when we think we can just “do” discernment. “Rather,” she said, “discernment is a way of life.” It’s a way of being in relationship with God that is far more significant than particular aesthetic disiplines and practices that we employ when we’re in a bind. It’s a spacious place within our very soul that is able to wait, to listen, to wonder, to actually feel vs. just processing things at a completely intellectual level without ever engaging our hearts.

    Not easy, this discernment thing. And certainly not easy to suffer, no matter the category.

    As I’ve been thinking about this nearly nonstop since last weekend, I realize that suffering is everywhere – certainly in my life and all around me. My attempts to escape it are for naught and I must be one who tirelessly works to end it – in my own life and in the lives of others. In the in-between time, in the midst, I want to suffer well, with strength and wisdom and grace – not for suffering’s sake, but on behalf of it’s end…

    Choosing the Storm

    Mar 6, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality

    I’ve been thinking a lot about how strong my proclivity is for calm; for a life that is tame, sedate, and predictable. 

    Somehow, I’ve gotten the notion into my head that surely God’s desire for me would be a life of comfort and ease. God’s protection and promised presence would surely look like secure relationships, finances, profession, retirement, future…

    I’m aware that at least in part, this incessant and often subconscious demand has come about by growing up and living in Western theology and culture that tells me I not only can, but deserve to have it all and that this is what God wants for me too. Even though I know that this is a lie, it’s hard to shake. I find myself asking questions like, “Can’t things just be easy?” “Can’t my life go the way I want it to?” “Why does life often feel like such a struggle?” 

    And then I begin to wonder: if God were to answer these questions the way I want (translate: by granting me a perfect, conflict-free life) who would that god be? Surely not the God I know from Scripture. 

    Who is that God? 

    It’s the God who sleeps in the storm: 

    On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were lled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 4:35-41) 

    This is not a tame, sedate, predictable story. This is not a tame, sedate, predictable God. And the natural question to follow: Why would I anticipate my life to be such if this is the God with whom I’m in relationship? 

    I’ll admit it: I’m somewhat afraid to let this narrative (and nearly every other one found in the pages of the Bible) define my God or shape my life. If I chose to reflect on, believe in, and live by this image of God – a God who was nonplussed in a treacherous storm – who might I become? That potential – to be like that God – dangerous, risky, not afraid – is more than I often want to imagine or bear…but not in the ways you might think. 

    The following two quotes speak beautifully to what it might be like, at least in part, to let the images and stories of scripture define my God…define my life: 

    Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive – the risk to be alive and express what we really are. (Don Miguel Ruiz) 

    Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. (Marianne Williamson) 

    Ultimately, the disciples’ fear is not about either death or being inadequate. The disciples’ fear is over what to do with a God who can sleep through such a storm, who can choose to calm it, who has dangerous, unquenchable, beyond-imagining power. Who might they become if they really understood, believed in, and followed this guy? 

    And like the disciples, our fear is not really over what might happen to us, what might overtake us, what storms might bluster and blow. Our fear is of who we might actually be if we believed in this God of Mark 4, this God of the Bible. Our fear is that we might actually have to let the wind blow; that we might just have to let go of our incessant demand for a life of ease – and the all-too-familiar comfort of doubting God’s faithfulness when things don’t go our way (or God seems to be asleep). We might actually have to get wet! 

    I think, maybe, that’s what I want… 

    Maybe – by Mary Oliver 

    Sweet Jesus, talking 
    his melancholy madness, 
    stood up in the boat 
    and the sea lay down,
    silky and sorry. 
    So everybody was saved 
    that night. 

    But you know how it is 
    when something 
    different crosses 
    the threshold—the uncles 
    mutter together, 
    the women walk away, 
    the younger brother begins 
    to sharpen his knife. 

    Nobody knows what the soul is. 
    It comes and goes 
    Like wind over the water— 
    Sometimes, for days, 
    you don’t think of it. 

    Maybe, after the sermon, 
    after the multitude was fed, 
    one or two of them felt 
    the soul slip forth 
    like a tremor of pure sunlight 
    before exhaustion, 
    that wants to swallow everything, 
    gripped their bones and left them 
    miserable and sleepy, 
    as they are now, forgetting 
    how the wind tore at the sails 
    before he rose and talked to it— 
    tender and luminous and demanding 
    as he always was— 
    a thousand times more frightening 
    than the killer sea. 

    No, I’m certain of it: this is the God I want to follow – tender, luminous and demanding, a thousand times more frightening than the killer sea. 

    This is the God I want to reflect. This is the life I want to live: choosing the storm.

    Choose Life

    Feb 22, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality, Women's Wisdom

    I spent a couple of lovely hours with a young woman this morning who asked me what I thought about spiritual oppression.

    “Do you think that the deep insecurity I feel, the fear of saying what I most know to be true, the anxiety over how others will perceive or understand me could be spiritual oppression?”

    This is a paraphrase of her story, her words, her experience, but it captures what I hardly believe to be unique to her. 

    What does it mean for us to truly believe – and act upon – what we feel and hear deep within ourselves? What do we do when we can anticipate – far ahead of time – how others will respond to our “truth” or our actions? How do we quiet the voices that tell us it is better to remain silent, behind the scenes, hidden, adaptive? And how do we honor the deeper voice that tells us we are beautiful, strong, wise, gifted, powerful, worth hearing? Not easy questions. And they are familiar questions that are imbedded deep within our souls – particularly as women. 

    My spiritual director has often said to me, “Ronna, what God offers and invites is always life. Do the questions (and their answers) with which you struggle bring you life or death? If the latter, they are not of God. Choose life!” 

    As I listened to this woman this morning I wondered what her life would bring: what realms of ministry, relationship, struggle and hope will she step into? What will her questions invite both in her own choices, as well as in the lives of others? How will she totally change her world – and the world around her – by choosing life, over and over again, no matter the cost? I believe that this is what God wants of and for each of us: changing our own world and the world around us by choosing life – no matter the cost. Splitting the world open… 

    “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” Muriel Rukeyser 

    Whose Story Am I In?

    Jan 21, 2007 | My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality

    I just finished writing this entire post, went to read through it from the beginning before hitting “publish,” and lost the whole thing. That somehow seems appropriate given the subject matter… 

    I’ve been reading Genesis this month. I’m attempting to stick with the plan and get through the entire Bible in 2007. This morning I must have read 2/3 of Genesis, which gives you an idea of how far behind I am already. If you must know…I should be to Exodus 14 by today. ‘Got a ways to go. 

    Anyway, as I’ve been reading I’ve been struck by the endless drama and ever-present crisis that seems to be in the midst of someone’s narrative nearly all the time. It feels familiar, certainly within the text, but also in my own life. 

    What am I to do with this text; this collection of stories that seem to be about particular people (and are, of course, to some extent) but are really about God? What do their stories – filled with such drama and crisis tell me about this God?

    For one thing, this God is not so concerned with individual plot twists and turns; mistakes and foibles and minutae that are constantly creating such messes. That’s comforting. This God is weaving a much larger story that inculcates individual stories but is far more redemptive, passionate and powerful than any one story could possibly be. Comforting, yes – but also a bit disconcerting. 

    Frankly, I want my story to be the one in which God is a part, not the other way around. Seems like if that were true, then drama and crisis and pain and struggle wouldn’t have to be the experience du jour, but instead, peace and calm and ease and freedom. Apparently that’s not the way it works – for anyone in the Biblical text or for me. 

    Perhaps it’s the very reality that I want things the other way around that creates the drama and crisis in the first place. 

    Will I let my life be a part of God’s story? Will I allow my own drama and crises to be evidence of God’s grace, kindness, redemption, and love? Will I rest and breathe deeply in the reality that my story doesn’t have to be the be-all, end-all? Will I allow the plot twists and turns I experience on a daily basis become the gentle (and sometimes bellowing) call to a larger story, to God’s story, of which my narrative is a part? 

    In my best moments I don’t want to be in charge of my story…not really. Sure, I’d like to have not lost my previously typed blog text (even though it was nothing like what I’ve now written). But I want rest and peace far more than control. I want to know that the drama and crisis of my life are not the end of things; that the God who loves stories, certainly those in the Biblical text, but also mine, is writing, directing, and producing a story that is far bigger, better, and more beautiful than I could imagine or dream. That is comforthing. I will rest…maybe after I’ve read a few more chapters yet tonight.